James Benham, President of the Indiana Farmers Union, wrote this week to the seven of Indiana's eight Congressmen who have yet to co-sponsor H.R. 1489, the bill to restore FDR's Glass-Steagall Act, urging them to get into action. Benham had requested his Congressional delegation do so in 2011, and now insists again that Glass Steagall is required to prevent the looming chain-reaction financial blowout. Reintate Glass Steagall, and then the country can get on with projects like the North American Water and Power Alliance, Benham wrote.

Last August, the Wisconsin and California state branches of the National Farmers Union also issued calls for Congress to ram through H.R. 1489.

Benham wrote his Congressmen this year:

"Greetings. I am writing to you again, and to all the members of the Indiana delegation, to stress the urgency for Congress to intervene against the monetary/banking unraveling now underwayas seen in the JPMorgan Chase mega-losses, the Eurozone crisis and other manifestationsby re-instating the Glass-Steagall Act, which was wrongly repealed in 1999. Do this, and we can get on with taking related measures to restore nation-serving credit for productive economic activity.

"Don't do Glass-Steagall, and we face austerity-hysteria and economic collapse. The so-called Eurozone crisis will not stay across the Atlantic Ocean.

"I am President of the Indiana National Farmers Union, serving on the NFU National Board. I farm in Ripley County. As a person engaged in essential physical production, my concern is that we are right now on the brink of a chain-reaction financial blow-out, which will cause chaos and mass suffering through economic breakdown in supply chains of food, fuel, medications, water, power, and other bare necessities. We have no food reserves—look at the corn shortage, and we cannot absorb a shock of any kind.

"Reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act —in fact, just lining up right now to do it soon—can prevent catastrophe. H.R. 1489 the "Return to Prudent Banking Act" will do the job. It is the necessary first step. Take it, and then we can launch such needed projects as the North American Water and Power Alliance (NAWAPA XXI), shelved since the 1960s, to restore and upgrade our continental land and water resources, and rev up our agro-industrial base.

"This is not a party-politics matter; it is a national security question. The H.R. 1489 bill has 63 co-sponsors as of today. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) initiated it; and Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) is among the Republicans leading the fight. There is now even a bandwagon for it, since the significance hit people, of what the JP Morgan Chase multi-billion dollar gambling lossesheading toward $20 billionssignify about the whole failed system. Even this week's Time magazine (June 4 issue) has an article for re-instating Glass Steagall ("The Case for Banking Regulation").

"H.R. 1489 will reinstate the provisions of the 1933 Glass-Steagall law, separating commercial and investment/speculative banking. That law will permit us to cancel the bailouts, which have destroyed our credit and government finances. We can then protect necessary commercial banking.

"Nothing else will work. Look at Europe: there is a drive to continue multi-trillion dollar bailouts for select banks, while imposing austerity and mass joblessness on Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Spain and ever more populations. The latest is that U.S. Treasury officials are visiting European capitals, to arrange for vast new infusions of funny money, from here. This must stop.

"We want you to co-sponsor H.R. 1489, and work to get it made law."

Get all the latest updates on LaRouche PAC's mobilization for Glass-Steagall on the Glass-Steagall Page.